Hello,
I know there are odbc drivers at least for microsoft, but since my tool has to be cross platform I would like to access the files direct via code.
Does someone already have some code written and is willing to share it?
Paradox is a dead technology. You won’t find support from the inventors, nor from Corel (who bought it), imagine here.
You should’ve migrated your DB technology in the last 20 years, but as you didn’t you should now.
https://www.wordperfect.com/en/pages/old-brands/corel-paradox/
Unfortunately, Borland has never documented the Paradox file format, so there’s no definitive information available.
Paradox tables (DB and MB) could be password encrypted, which may be why you could not read the data, if you do not have the password.
may be some reverse of this code could help ?
You need a Windows XP VM and an old MS Access installed. With MS Access (from that age) the Paradox ODBC driver comes installed.
There you could read the files and export the contents to move away from Paradox.
in the github link I gave above, there is a file explaining the paradox 4 file format.
you still have to build the code for it !
edit: there is also a pascal unit to access the file, so the translation to xojo should be easier than expected.
Too much trouble to convert the data. I would pay $16 for this:
Rick, I absolutly agree. Personally I use PostGre or MariaDB. But there is always a but:
One of my clients has an really old medical program, no source, programmer gone, a complex application with no alternative yet. Coding that monster new will take a long time. Now he needs a tool to extract data from the databases while they still work with it… So here I go.
I hoped I don’t have to invent the wheel again.
Thank’s to all for the hints and leads!
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In case of needing to reinvent the wheel, C version documented:
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If you only need to read there is always the TParadoxDataSet component for Lazarus / Free Pascal.
Hi Rick,
Regarding Direct access methods for paradox .db files (from Apr 17).
I have the same issues as a personal user of a paradox application. Years ago I found that my MS Access XP pro could natively attach and read the paradox tables. So I continued using the great app that I owned, knowing I could use Assess to easily get at the data tables (and figure out the relationships and keyfields). I now understand MS was forced to remove the connector from subsequent versions of Access.
Hopefully you can help me. I’ve not had luck opening the files, which I believe are paradox 6 (or possibly 5). I am not a programmer but fairly comfortable with the Access VBA module. [Perhaps I just need to keep flaying around with the Windows 32 bit ODBC Data Sources Tool.] Any guidance or advise would be helpful.
Marc
You should’ve moved away from Paradox 15 years ago. 
Try this tool (at your own risk) to try to convert it to an Access MDB and see if you can access it.